Campaign News

Global Shock

It's true that many of the causes of the recent stock market turmoil are global, rather than domestic. But those distinctions are becoming less important in a world of unfettered capital flow. Regional markets, like regional ecosystems, are interconnected.

Europe is struggling because of a misguided attachment to growth-killing austerity policies. Like Republicans in this country, Europe's leaders are focused on unwise government cost-cutting measures that hurt the overall economy.

China's superheated markets have experienced a sharp downturn, and its devaluing of the yuan is likely to affect American monetary policy. Many of the so-called "emerging markets" are in grave trouble, their problems exacerbated by an anticipated interest rate hike from the U.S. Fed.

Plunging crude oil prices are a major factor in the events of the last few days. But questions remain about the underlying forces affecting those prices. Demand is somewhat weaker, and Saudi officials are refusing to cut production. But there is still some debate about whether these and other well-reported factors are enough to explain the fact that the price of a barrel of oil is roughly half what it was just over a year ago, in June 2014.

American Turmoil

Talk of recovery here in the U.S. has been significantly dampened by events of the last several days. The now-interrupted stock market boom had been Exhibit A in the case for recovery.

Exhibit B was the ongoing drop in the official unemployment rate. There, too, signs of underlying weakness can be found. The labor force participation rate remains very low for people in their peak working years, as economist Elise Gould notes, and has only come back about halfway from pre-2008 levels. Jared Bernstein notes that pressure to raise wages, which one would also expect in a recovering job market, also remains weak.

All this argues for a rational and coordinated policy, one in which the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government act together to restore a wounded economy. What would that look like?

It would not include raised interest rates -- something that nevertheless continues to be a topic of serious discussion. As Dean Baker points out, China's currency devaluation alone should have been enough to take that idea off the table. What's more, as Baker rightly notes, such a move would only make sense if the Fed "is worried that the U.S. economy was growing too quickly and creating too many jobs."  That's a notion most Americans would probably reject as absurd. Most are not seeing their paychecks grow or their job opportunities multiply.

Anxiety about inflation, while all but omnipresent in some circles, is not a rational fear. A slow rise in prices (0.2 percent in the 12 months ending in July, as opposed to the Fed's recommended 2 percent per year) tells us that inflation is not exactly looming on the horizon.

Now what?

"Everything is going to be dictated by government policy," the chief investment officerof a well-known investment firm said this week. In that case, isn't it time for a national conversation about that policy?

Another investment strategist told the Wall Street Journal that today's challenges come at a time when "global central banks have exhausted almost all their tools ... It's difficult to see how central banks come in to support markets."

If they've exhausted all their commonly-used tools, it may be time to develop new ones -- not to support "markets," but to promote jobs and growth for everyone.

First, do no harm. The Fed needs to hold off on any move to raise interest rates. But inaction is not enough. It was given a dual mandate by Congress: to stabilize prices and keep employment at reasonable levels.

Activist groups like the "Fed Up" coalition, led by the Center for Popular Democracy (and including the Campaign for America's Future), are working to move the Fed toward that second objective. They've been pushing to change its governing boards, which are heavily dominated by big banks and other major financial interests, and have called for policies that focus on improving the economic lives of most Americans.

Those policies could take a number of forms. One idea comes from Jeremy Corbyn, the populist politician who's on track to become the next leader of Great Britain's Labour Party. Corbyn's economic plan includes "quantitative easing for people instead of banks." Corbyn proposes to grow the financial sector in a targeted way, by giving the Bank of England (the UK's version of the Fed) a mandate to "invest in new large scale housing, energy, transport and digital projects."

A headline on the website of the Financial Times says (with apparent surprise) that "Corbyn's "People's QE" could actually be a decent idea."

Corbyn also proposes to "strip out some of the huge tax reliefs and subsidies on offer to the corporate sector." The added revenue would go to "direct public investment," including the creation of a 'National Investment Bank' to "invest in the new infrastructure we need and in the hi-tech and innovative industries of the future."

Qualitative Easing

Call it "qualitative," rather than "quantitative," easing. It would increase the money supply, but for money that is to be invested in the real-world economy -- the one that creates jobs, lifts wages, and creates broad economic growth.

Could something like Corbyn's plan ever happen here? There's no reason why not. The Federal Reserve wasn't created by bankers, nor is it there to serve bankers -- although a lot of people inside and outside the Fed act as if it were. (The choice of a former Goldman Sachs executive for its latest major appointment won't help change that.)

The Federal Reserve was created by the American people through an act of Congress. Its governors and its policies are there to protect and serve the public. The Fed should use its oversight capabilities to ensure that banks don't behave in a reckless manner or help private funds and other unsupervised institutions to behave recklessly.

We are still paying the price for allowing big-money interests to dominate both lawmaking on Capitol Hill and monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. That must change. Congress and the Fed, acting together, should ensure that our nation's policies benefit the many who are in need of help, not the few who already have more than they need.

Richard Eskow is a writer and editor with the Bernie 2016 campaign, the host of The Zero Hour radio program, and a Senior Fellow with the Campaign for America's Future. The opinions expressed here are his own.

Source: Huffington Post

There’s a black man. Police confront him. Police kill him, and we watch the video. There’s an investigation, protests and calls for justice. A community grieves, and we all hit repeat.

Alton Sterling, repeat. Philando Castile, repeat. Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Willie Tillman, David Joseph, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I’m tired, y’all. I’m effing tired. I’m tired of hearing about these families who have lost fathers and sons, listening to simple platitudes about thoughts and prayers, or the pretzel-like explanations for how it’s all the dead guy’s fault.

And then nothing changes.

I welled up watching Sterling’s 15-year-old son break down and wail “I want daddy” at a news conference. Sterling was killed Tuesday while selling CDs and DVDs outside a store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The police say they were responding to a report of an armed man.

The tears spilled down my cheeks as I watched the video of Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, begging, “Please officer don’t tell me that you just did this to him. You shot four bullets into him, sir.” Meanwhile, Castile is slumped over, bleeding and with his arm at a terrible angle. These killings have to stop.

After watching the video of Sterling, one of my black high school friends role-played with his sons, ages 8 and 12, on how to respond if they are ever confronted by a police officer. He even had them lie down and simulate being handcuffed. Another friend talked about how she hated that she was scared her husband, a hospital administrator, or her 16-year old son could someday be gunned down by a police officer.

This morning I told my husband, “I’m glad we now live in a country where I don’t have to worry about our sons getting killed by the police.” I love America, but damn, these killings and the muted effort to change is gut-wrenching.

It feels like the country that my ancestors helped to build with blood, sweat and tears, the place that I call home and miss terribly now that I live in Norway, just doesn’t care about me or those who look like me. Me and my brothers are all criminals, mere statistics or people waiting to become a statistic.

Fixing this epidemic feels like such an insidious behemoth, but we can’t keep going like this.

It’s easy to grow numb to the drumbeat of bodies piling in the streets from guns, drugs and other societal ills. Believe me, I get it. I’d rather scroll through the images of Paris’ fashion week than see Castile’s blood drench his plain white tee.

But I can’t. That would be just like hitting repeat.

What can I do?

First, I won’t pretend to have the answers, but through the magic of the interwebs you can find some very pertinent and well-researched information. One that I especially liked was a report from the Center for Popular Democracy and Policy Link. The two non-profit advocacy groups developed 15 possible solutions to curb police brutality. The ideas include increased police training and funding, treating drug addicts and the mentally ill instead of incarcerating them, and my personal favorite: Make the policy makers see their own racism.

Look, let’s be honest. We all have -isms, we’re not proud of them because we know it’s wrong to judge people based on looks, money or education, but it happens, and refusing to recognize the elephant in the room helps no one.

Check out the link to the report for how to push for such changes.

I care, but I don’t have any free time

We are all busy people. Work, school, kids, friends, life, and there are only 24 hours in a day. However, you make time for what you feel is important. Are you all caught up on what’s going on with Olivia Pope? Have you binge-watched “Orange Is The New Black” or something else on Netflix? How about my “Game of Thrones” people? Yeah, so it’s all a matter of priorities.

You gotta do what works for you, but please, don’t just sit there and hit repeat.

By MELANIE COFFEE

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JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.—The liberal Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign has criticized Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve in recent years for raising interest rates, lacking diversity in its senior ranks and retaining a quasi-private legal structure for its regional reserve banks.

Green-shirted Fed Up activists again have set up shop outside the central bank’s annual retreat in Grand Teton National Park. But this year, their critique of the Fed is paired with praise for Ms. Yellen and a demand that she remain the central bank’s chairwoman for another four-year term.

Read the full article here.

Newsy spoke with Anand Subramanian, the associate director of PolicyLink. Together with the Center for Popular Democracy, PolicyLink published a report with recommendations on how communities can improve the way their local police force operates.

Collect more data:

"Police departments need to collect data that's broken down by race, by gender, etc., on who they're stopping, why they're stopping them, whether they were searched, whether there was consent for the search and whether any contraband was found," Subramanian said. "By collecting and publishing that data, communities can really assess whether there are racial disparities or not."

Ban biased policing:

"Every police department should have a policy prohibiting racial profiling and prohibiting biased policing. It allows departments to hold officers accountable if they've been found to engage in biased policing."

Get independent oversight:

"A lot of communities are advocating for policies that institute an independent body that has oversight over the department's policies — an audit function to make sure that the department is complying with its policies, that the policies are up to par and that the department is actually holding its officers accountable for misconduct."

Decriminalize low-level offenses:

"Another area that community advocates may want to look at is decriminalizing certain laws in their community. A lot of times, specific laws tend to be applied in a biased way. One good example of that are so-called status laws like loitering or spitting. But what you find in those communities, if those laws are ever applied, they're only applied in communities of color or vastly disproportionately in communities of color."

Don't fine people for being poor:

"Communities should really take a look at whether there are laws on the books that make it illegal for someone to not pay a fine. So we saw this in Ferguson where the DOJ went to investigate, and what they found was that the city government was really run on the backs of poor people. You may not even know that people are sitting in jail for being too poor to pay a traffic fine, for instance. And so we really urge communities to identify those laws and really advocate for their communities to change those laws."

Enforce the Fourth Amendment:

"A lot of times, police officers will ask someone they stopped whether they consent to a search. What we're finding is that a lot of times what is seen as consent may not actually be true consent. It may be that they don't want to give consent, but they feel scared or frightened, so they give consent under duress. In any case where someone being stopped by a police officer has a right, that right should be expressly shared by the police officer."

Editor's note: Anand Subramanian's interview has been condensed for length

By KATE GRUMKE

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